Dogs don’t block creativity like Karl Ove Knausgaard says – every writer needs one

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. He resented the dog’s presence in his home, not merely because “it pulled on its leash as hard as it could, dug holes in the lawn, and was never properly house-trained”, but because by all accounts it left him – a man who can seemingly write on any subject, no matter how quotidian, and always at great length – with writer’s block. “In the two years we had it, I didn’t write a single line of literary prose,” he complained, adding that, “I’m not blaming the dog” – before doing pretty much that. Through my grieving, and through the hawk, I learned a lot about death, but also about humanity.” Macdonald, like Nunez after them, could never have guessed their book would go on to become a literary sensation, one that would prompt the publication of several subsequent books in a similar vein, among them Charlie Gilmour’s Featherhood, a touching account of fathers and magpies. open image in gallery Mary Gaitskill’s memoir about her missing cat “I think that animals make us see the world through their eyes,” says Macdonald, “even though this is obviously an act of imagination because we can’t really know what it’s like to be a dog, out there sniffing every blade of grass.